The present invention relates to a sugar can harvester in general, and, more particularly to a feeding device for a sugar cane harvester.
Sugar cane harvesters of the type under consideration are known in the art. One of such harvesters is disclosed, for example in U.S. Pat. No. 4,065,912. Sugar cane harvesters of the type under discussion normally include a feeding device operable to separate cane sticks from their roots and feeding the cane sticks into a cutting device from which cut sticks are fed into a conveyor of the harvester, which conveyor feeds the cut sticks to a purification stage.
The feeding device of the known in practice harvesters includes a pair of rotary cane dividers provided with skids. The cane dividers are normally spaced from each other at a predetermined distance which is not adjustable. The purpose of the rotary cane dividers is to feed sugar sticks into the harvester. In some cases the rotary cane dividers are mounted to a cutting mechanism of the harvester by means of parallel links. A hydraulic cylinder is employed to adjust the position of the cane dividers along the height of the harvester so as to also adjust the cutting height of the cutting mechanism. In some other constructions, rotary cane dividers are rigidly mounted to the frame of the harvester or to the cutting mechanism; in these latter cases the cutting height can not be adjusted by changing the position of the cane dividers. In these cases the cut height adjustment can be only achieved by lowering or lifting the whole harvester. In both cases, however, the rotary cane dividers are rigidly mounted to the frame of the harvester or to its cutting mechanism. The distance between two spaced cane dividers is once adjusted in accordance with a middle value. This is disadvantageous because in different conditions sugar sticks are not properly fed into the harvester. For example, standing and burnt sugar sticks require small cutting area (rotary cane dividers should be positioned rather close to each other) whereas hanging and lying sticks can not be properly fed into the machine under the above conditions and there is a risk that the machine will be blocked. Lying and hanging sugar sticks require a wider cutting area, and in this case the distance between two rotary cane dividers should be relatively large. If the distance between two cane dividers is relatively large, standing sugar canes in operation will fall out of the cutting area and will be lost for the harvest.